The ThornBearer
Penned in Time—Book One
Pepper Basham
Smashwords Edition
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Copyright ©2015 Pepper Basham
Cover illustration copyright © 2015 Elaina Lee/For the Muse Designs
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All characters in this work are purely fictional and have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
ISBN: 978-0-9903042-7-2
PUBLISHED BY VINSPIRE PUBLISHING, LLC
Dedication
To my parents, Jay and Ginger Williams,
Who taught me the beauty of forgiveness and always dreamed big dreams for me
Prologue
April 1914
Death hovered in the shadows of the room, a shapeless presence as familiar to Ashleigh Dougall as the scent of morphine. Two years of nursing in the mountains of western North Carolina taught her to accept the invisible company as a passage of life. Sometimes it came as a thief to steal a final breath, other times it appeared as an angel of mercy to end a prolonged illness or a satisfied life, and then, there were moments when it entered as an arm of justice. Precisely what her father deserved.
She cringed at the dark turn of her thoughts and wiped a weary hand across her brow. Her father’s ashen complexion and sunken cheeks proved a striking indicator of the pain his illness wrought, but it couldn’t compare to the agony he’d inflicted. Years of a secret tyranny as malignant as any cancer. She pushed away from his deathbed, but her stand jolted to a stop by a grip on her wrist.
A frigid fear rushed through her at her father’s touch, weakening her and forcing her back into the chair. Every muscle fiber tensed to the defense, but nothing prepared her for the desperate plea in his dark eyes.
“Forgive me.” His staggered breath eked out the words. “Forgive me.”
Ashleigh tried to pull free, the otherworldliness in his voice tugging at the fabric of her hate, but his fingers pinched tight, riveting her in place. He’d trapped her all over again.
“I ruined you…ruined you to any man.” He drew in another ragged strain of air. “Took liberties with you…”
Ashleigh succeeded in pulling free and placed the chair as a barrier between them.
“Forgive me.”
She grappled for breath. His gaze pleaded for something she could never give – a freedom he didn’t deserve. The raw nakedness of his declaration shivered through her, exposing his monstrous sin after years of silence. The hideous ache of her lost childhood nearly crippled her back to her chair, but she fisted the back of the chair and stood to her full height. She would never forgive him.
He’d thrived within the walls of a lie, moving their family from their estate home in England when the debt grew too large and the rumors stung too close to truth. Nestled on the outskirts of Asheville they’d resumed his sickness within Grandmama’s house until Ashleigh had grown strong enough to stop him.
Bile rose into her throat and she jerked back from those haunting eyes.
“Ashleigh.” He moaned, snagging her gaze back to his before he lost consciousness.
A creak of boards at the door shook her attention away from the deathbed and to the empty hallway. Had someone overheard her father’s confession? No. She raced to the doorway, only glancing back to note the weak rise and fall of her father’s chest as he lay in his frail final hours.
Afternoon sunlight from the open balcony door provided the only presence in the hall. She kneaded her fingers into her head and breathed out a sigh of relief. Her secret needed to die here, with her father. No one else could ever know. It would ruin them all.
The sunlight beckoned her away from the deathbed and into the warmth and fresh air. A honeysuckle breeze cooled the tear-stains on her cheeks. She wiped her cheeks, wishing the stains on her soul cleared as easily. God, help me.
She massaged her neck and eased out to bask in the full glow of afternoon, but a movement from the garden along with her sister’s desperate voice stilled her steps.
“Father is dying. Ashleigh is as good as gone.” Catherine’s voice hitched with a sob as she gripped Sam Miller’s arms. The wind had loosed enough of her hair from her loaf bun to send several locks framing her face. The stark contrast of ebony hair and piercing blue eyes were noticeable even from Ashleigh’s place on the balcony. Paired with her sister’s height and exposed, slender neckline, she was the perfect model of a Gibson Girl. Catherine had always been the pretty one.
Sam, their neighbor and friend, had fallen for her the day she’d arrived from across the Atlantic.
“It isn’t right.” Her words pierced into the afternoon birdsong. “The eldest should marry first, and yet Ashleigh is engaged.”
Ashleigh bit back the sarcasm tickling her lips. Now Catherine claims the status of eldest? In every other way, responsibility, sacrifice, management, and control, Ashleigh had been forced to act as eldest as Catherine requited any such expectation, but when the title suited her, she wielded it as a skillful sword.
Ashleigh looked to the tiny stone on her finger, a choice made out of friendship and necessity more than love – a way to ease her mother’s financial burden at Father’s passing. Michael Craven’s polite affections were safe and logical. A good decision. And yet she couldn’t move her gaze from Sam. The way his fingertips tenderly brushed a tear from Catherine’s cheek sent residual warmth across Ashleigh’s face. Her chest squeezed tight with a sudden longing.
Catherine buried her head into his shoulder. His broad, strong shoulder. Ashleigh raised a palm to her cheek, remembering the feel of his jacket when he’d comforted her in the past. The little sister. The tag-along. He’d made her laugh – to forget all the heaviness she carried. There had been safety in those arms, in the authenticity of his friendship.
Her heart trembled a rhythm.
Those aqua eyes paired with his boyish smile—
It was a good thing he belonged to Catherine.
“Catherine, I can’t give you the life you deserve yet.” The gentle hum of Sam’s Appalachian accent curbed smooth like the strums of a bass. “You’re used to servants and teas and fancy store-bought clothes. In a year, maybe I can give you those things, but I don’t even have a ring yet—”
“I don’t need a ring.” She pulled him closer. “Your love is all I need.”
Ashleigh held her breath, Sam’s hesitation a sign of his uncertainty. Catherine’s inconsi
stency had wounded him once. Would he still wish to marry her?
With a large sigh from those sturdy shoulders, he cupped her face with his palms and the sweetness of it wrenched a gasp out of Ashleigh.
“Then, Catherine, will you marry me?”
Sam’s thumb lingered on her sister’s cheek, his tenderness a sweet pang in Ashleigh’s chest and a poignant reminder. Love required a full heart, a whole woman. A cost she could never afford.
Chapter One
May 1, 1915
There is a distinct difference between marrying a man you do not love, and falling in love with a man you cannot marry. As Ashleigh Dougall locked eyes with Sam Miller across Manhattan’s crowded dock, the sting of that truth stripped all doubt. Pinpricks of fresh awareness rifled through her like the sharp May wind off the wharf of the Atlantic, bringing to life a shocking realization.
Heaven help her. She was in love with her sister’s fiancé.
Even through the space of noisy travelers and hurried porters, Sam’s grin tripped her heartbeat and introduced a myriad of emotions she’d reserved for three-volume novels and daydreams. Ash-brown curls twisted in an unruly manner from under his brown Fedora and shadowed his best feature – his eyes.
In love with her sister’s fiancé? A man who’d become her dearest friend? Nonsense.
But her mental reprimand did nothing as her pulse skittered into rhythm with Alexander’s Ragtime from the pier. She waited for her mind to catch up with her errant heart, to blame the high emotions of departure, but each thought confirmed the growing attraction. He’d provided escort for the long journey from North Carolina and only now her emotions swelled from girlish fancy to—
No. The idea was utter madness and complete betrayal, a family trait of which she would not fall prey. Whether she blamed youthful blindness or disappointed hopes, the truth remained: Sam was ever faithful – and forever Catherine’s.
Or the woman he thought her sister was.
Ashleigh drew her day suit jacket taut. Rumors had made their way across the Atlantic in Mother’s letters and Fanny’s quick missives. The faithful maid gave more insight into Catherine’s notorious flirting and dogged pursuit of Edensbury’s elite, flaunting a wealth her family didn’t possess. After a year abroad to help her mother grieve, nothing had changed.
A child’s scream pierced through her mental fog. Ashleigh turned in time to see a little girl tumble forward and land in a crumpled mess of lace and cloth on the dock floor, arm pinned beneath her.
A woman with the same blush of auburn hair, rushed to the child’s side. “Alice, are you all right?”
Without another thought to the maddening confusion of her heart, nursing instincts quickened Ashleigh’s steps to the pair on the dock. The older woman pulled the child into her lap.
“My wrist hurts, Mama.” The girl’s cries were muffled against her mother’s chest.
Ashleigh dropped her valise and reticule and lowered herself to the dock beside the pair. Their faded, but pressed clothes, suggested poor – but hardworking. Like so many she’d served over the past two years in the rural North Carolinian Mountains.
She met the mother’s frantic gaze with the cool calm of her specialty. “My name is Ashleigh Dougall. I am a trained nurse. Might I be of assistance?”
Alice whimpered. “I can’t move it, Mama.”
“My girl, Alice, has hurt her wrist.” The mother’s voice pitched higher, a sudden awareness raising her volume and drawing attention from the passersby. “If it’s broke what are we going to do? I used my last dollar to pay for our tickets. How am I going to—?”
“Let’s see what we have here, first. What do you say? I’ve watched magical recoveries with little girls and wounded wrists before.” Alice peeked her teary gaze from her mother’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t wonder if this might not be the perfect setting for another bit of magic.” Ashleigh smoothed her words into softer tones and the spell worked.
The mother’s breathing slowed. Alice sniffled and squinted at Ashleigh, her eyes a beautiful umber hue.
“Hello, darling, I’m very sorry for your spill. I would like to help you. I’m a nurse and know a bit about things like bruised wrists and skinned knees. May I look at your arm, Alice?”
The little girl tightened her hold on her doll, proving the wound was more a sprain than a break. Painful, but not as serious and certainly a less expensive fix.
Sam emerged in Ashleigh’s periphery a short distance across the dock, his whistle at full volume. She caught his gaze in a solid hold of unspoken messages. He paused. Ten years of friendship worked its wonders. He surveyed the situation and increased his pace toward them, resuming his tune along with the band.
She turned to the little girl and lowered her voice to increase the suspense. “My friend Sam has a secret. Do you like secrets?”
Alice’s whimpers died altogether. A smile tickled at the corners of Ashleigh’s lips in response to the interest glittering in Alice’s golden eyes.
Sam removed the newspaper from beneath his arm and knelt at Ashleigh’s side, bringing with him his usual scent of soap and lemon. Heat swirled up her neck and planted firmly on her cheeks, no doubt darker than her mauve day suit.
She acknowledged him with a nod, but kept her attention fastened on Alice’s movements, in part to monitor her injury and in part to gain time to cool the sudden warmth around her chest at his nearness. “Have you ever had a LifeSaver? I wouldn’t wonder if one or two might be the medicine you need to feel better. What do you think, Sam?”
Alice’s sharpened gaze fastened on Sam.
“Well…” His rich bass voice melted into conversation. “You have to be pretty special to get a piece of my candy.” He pulled a colorful roll of paper from his pocket and slowly opened the wrapper.
Alice didn’t miss one twist of Sam’s fingers.
“So, Alice, I need you to reach those fingers out for that candy, and if you use both hands, Sam will put a LifeSaver in each.”
“Two?” Her lips wobbled into an ‘o’ shape.
“Two.” Ashleigh looked to the mother. “If she can clasp this candy, then it will confirm my suspicions of a sprain rather than a break.”
The mother gave a feeble nod.
In an easy sweep of his hand, Sam popped a piece from the wrapper with his thumb, tossed it up in the air and caught it in his mouth. He sighed and closed his eyes with a look of utter satisfaction. “Mmm, that’s some good candy.”
A smile unfurled on Ashleigh’s lips. Such a boy.
The temptation proved too much for Alice’s resolve. With the slowest of motions she unclenched her left fist, dropped her doll on her lap, and brought her left hand to join her outstretched right one.
As Sam placed a LifeSaver in her left palm, she fisted it without a hint of discomfort, eyeing the candy as if it was manna from Heaven. For a poor little girl with a well-worn gown, it just might have been.
Alice raised the red piece into her mouth, her eyes brightening with a hidden smile.
“The red ones are my favorite, but Sam likes yellow best.” Ashleigh made a face and Alice’s grin unhinged a little more.
“Bright and cheery, Miss Alice,” Sam added with a wink. “I’m a big fan of lemons.”
Ashleigh bit back a comment about one sour thing deserving another, but her expression must have hinted her thoughts.
“And I’m never sour, Miss Ashleigh,” he added with a raised brow. “I’m as sweet as country boys come.”
She rolled her eyes, but her smile expanded despite her best attempts. A connection had always existed between the two of them -- an easy acceptance. From the first day her family moved into the grand Victorian beside his smaller cottage in Asheville, North Carolina, she’d found the strained relationships of her family bearable with Sam and his father nearby. Harsh family secrets stung less with the kindness of her surrogate big brother. Her chin tilted with resolve. She would not forfeit their friendship to a girlish romantic notion, even if her way
ward sister taunted a threadbare hold on his heart.
She tugged at the floral scarf about her neck until it loosed. “Alice, I’m going to wrap your wrist with my scarf until you can see the physician aboard. It will hurt less, if it moves less.”
Alice’s umber eyes widened. “A silk scarf? For me?”
The wonder on the little girl’s face fed the dream in Ashleigh’s heart– an orphanage for little lost souls – of war, or worse. Every child deserved an opportunity for love and a family. Michael’s desertion propelled her into the choice all the more. Heaven knew what her former fiancé had done with his ticket. Wherever he was, he’d most likely sold it weeks ago to pay off a foolish debt. The expensive trip had only proved another one of his grand schemes unraveled into disaster – except this time he gambled her future.
With a few quick and gentle movements, the scarf twisted around Alice’s wrist in a makeshift bandage of gold, blue, and rose. “My gift to you for being such an excellent patient. Now, let’s get you aboard so the physician can properly see to your arm.” Ashleigh reached for her reticule and started to stand. Sam was at her side to assist her. The perfect gentleman.
Catherine doesn’t deserve him.
Sam leaned close to her ear. “Nice work, Nurse Dougall. No wonder your patients love you.”
The intimacy of his whisper sent tingles rushing across her neck, renewing the whole battle of fight or flight within her. She offered him the briefest of smiles and turned back to the mother and daughter. “Have a safe journey.”
With a wink in Ashleigh’s direction, Sam placed another LifeSaver in Alice’s unharmed hand. Yellow.
“And a happy one.”
The mother and daughter offered their thanks again and then rushed off to the third class gangway, leaving her alone with Sam. Alone with Sam. That had never been a problem before.
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